Increasingly, consumers are using devices to perform a variety of transactions that are sensitive in nature, such as financial and personal. Thus, security for accessing these devices has become extremely important to the consumer and as a result the industry at large that sell products and services to the consumer.
For example, Personal Identification Number (PIN) codes are being deployed in more and more devices and applications beyond just the conventional Automated Teller Machine (ATM) applications for which PIN codes were originally associated with. In most cases, PIN codes are limited to four numeric values that are entered into a device by pressing one alphanumeric code at a time in a predefined sequence. Such application, limits the number of possible entries to about 10,000 and may also be easy for an eavesdropper to see when in proximity to a consumer entering a PIN code
In fact, in mobile device applications, the User Interface (UI) strives to limit the number of key strokes to a bare minimum for a PIN code of a consumer.
These situations for PIN code definition and PIN code entry create unnecessary security and UI problems.